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Supreme Court — Part 12
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bh conscientiously and delibera y wcluded, and involves an
_Sseumption that knowledge and wisdom reside in us which was denied
our predecessors,”
In the Dred Scott Case, Abraham Lincoln criticized the
“ourt, declaring the decision erroneous and pledging the Republican
Party to "do what we can to have it overruled."
Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 9, 1937, commenting on a
decision of the Supreme Court, said: "The Court in addition to the
troper use of its judicial functions has improperly set itself up as
a third house of the Congress - a super-legislature, as one of the
justices called it - reading into the Constitution, words and ia-
plications which are not there.
‘We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where
we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the
Court from itself -+---,
“Our difficulty with the Court today rises not from the
Court as an institution but from the human beings within it.”
In the case of Pennsylvania v. Steve Nelson, decided
April 2, 1956, the Supreme Court declared invalid the laws of forty-
two states prohibiting the knowing advocacy of the overthrow of the
Fovernment of the United States by violence, as long as there is a
federal law against sedition. The argument of the Justice Department
that the State laws did not interfere with the enforcement of the
foderal statute was of no avail. Juetices Reed, Burton and Minton
vigorously dissented.
On April 9, 1956, the same Justices Reed, Burton and
Minton again vigorously dissented when the majority declared uncon-
stitutional, a provision of the Charter of New York City under which
one Professor Blochower, an employee of the City of New York, was
dismissed for failure to answer a question in an authorized inguiry,
on the ground that bis answer might incriminate him.
. In a similar case, involving Professor Paul M. Sweezy,
who had refused to answer questions about his beliefs and political
activities asked him during a hearing conducted by an authorized com.
mittee appointed by the New Hampshire legislature, the Court re-
wersed a contempt conviction. Justices Clark and Burton again vigor-
ously dissented. | :
In announcing the decision of the majority in the case
of Professor Sweezy, Chief Justice Warren said: "We believe that
there unquestionably was an invasion of petitioners (Sweezy's)
«3-
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